MPs up in arms for St George

A row broke out at Westminster yesterday after it was announced that Turkish National Day is to be celebrated in a Commons dining room on April 23, St George's Day.

A Commons motion has been tabled calling for the mass resignation of the Catering Committee unless the day is used to honour the patron saint of England instead.

Winston Churchill, Tory MP for Davyhulme, who tabled the motion, said: "I find it quite incomprehensible ... If something comparable was done in Scotland on Burns' night, the nation would be up in arms."

But Sir Donald Thompson, Conservative MP for Calder Valley and a member of the Catering Committee, said: "I am all for celebrating whatever, whenever - the more the merrier."

Bellamy's Cafeteria in the new parliamentary building plans also to mark Children's Day on 23 April.